Helen, glad you're posting about this, you make far better points than I can...
Thanks. I truly appreciate that.
Edited to add:
I think there are a few common sense things we can do that would allow guns and still greatly reduce some of the issues.
Require a license for every firearm, close the private sale loopholes, and make safe storage a law.
People often use cars as an analogy, as in 'cars kill people but we don't ban them'. We do require insurance on cars though, and you have to prove you can drive to get a license, and you can't sell a car without a government involved title transfer. Those aren't bad ideas for firearms.
While that sounds nice and reasonable, I fail to see how any of that stops a crazy person from entering a gun free zone such as a school and shooting up the place or gang members from using guns to shoot each other .
Having lisences for cars never stopped drive by shootings.
When you get a car lisence, the idea is that you prove you know basic safety and rules of the road.
Most people aren't worried about people not knowing how to properly use guns safety. It is a concern and accidents do happen, but that isn't the main issue.
The issue is
malicious intent.
When I bought my handgun, I had to take a short multiple choice test and perform a visual test showing how to safely handle the handgun. Then was given the handgun permit. But that's here in California. Then I had to wait about 10 days and have a background check.
The thing is, I still don't see how any of that stops bad people from doing bad things.
The one point that I think is valid is that guns can be moved to bad areas and cities from areas with less restriction on guns and less crime.
Which is why I have a bit more respect for those that argue against all gun ownership everywhere. Because in order to hurt the firearm black market you'd have to ban all guns and destroy hundreds of millions of guns. And then MAYBE, that will have some sort of effect. I don't know.
I would fight against that tooth and nail, but it makes more sense than these annoying ass laws California keeps passing that ultimately just makes things harder on legal gun owners that aren't criminals. Magazine capacity restrictions, ammo restrictions, conceal carry restrictions, storage restrictions, fees, and on and on. And for what? So criminals can continue doing what they do.
